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President-elect Donald Trump has said he believes he can broker a deal to bring the nearly three-year-long conflict between Ukraine and Russia to an end. Yet events on the ground suggest a potentially imminent escalation in the fighting.
Russian troops − swelled by thousands of North Korean troops − are poised for a major counteroffensive aimed at retaking Russian territory in the Kursk region. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has reportedly given the green light to Ukraine using U.S. longer-range missiles to hit targets deeper in Russia.
These three things − talks of a deal, Russia’s troop buildup and Biden’s move − are interconnected, explains Benjamin Jensen, a military strategist at American University and the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting. The White House authorization is, he says, likely a response to North Korean support of Moscow’s presumed next move of attempting to retake parts of Kursk. The outgoing Biden administration has concluded that authorizing ATACMS, which can travel farther, faster and with a better chance of not being intercepted, provides Ukraine with its best chance of keeping Kursk.
“I think you will see Russia throw everything at Kursk, militarily,” Jensen writes. “And Ukraine will do everything it can to keep control of territory there − Kyiv knows that Kursk would be its biggest bargaining chip should it come to negotiations.”
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Matt Williams
Senior International Editor
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U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office on Sept. 26, 2024.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Benjamin Jensen, American University School of International Service
The authorization of longer-range missiles by the Biden administration is seen as an effort to counter a buildup of Russian troops supported by fighters from North Korea.
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